I noticed that the criminal justice system in my town works with proprietary
video formats. I'm thinking of asking the government to use free formats
instead.
I have some questions -- but here's some background info first:
The Toronto Police Service collects video evidence from surveillance cameras,
camera phones, their own video cameras, etc. These videos come in all kinds
of formats: maybe some proprietary, some free. As far as I can tell, the
police choose which formats to convert these to. They convert the videos to
a new proprietary video format some --maybe all-- of the time.
The police save their new proprietary format video (eg: .exe, Adobe format,
CSS-DVD*, etc) to DVDs, and provide those DVDs to the Crown counsel
(government prosecutors). The Crown counsel then give one copy to the
accused person, or to the accused person's lawyer (defence counsel).
I wrote some paragraphs that I might use in my letter to the police, and
questions that I hope you guys can help answer. Please let me know where I
made mistakes (I'm sure that I made many), or where I can convey the message
better.
Thanks guys,
M
Convenience
Proprietary formats can be inconvenient for proprietary software users (eg.
Windows and MacOS users). A Mac user may not be able to watch a video in
.exe format. A Windows user may not have a license for a particular Adobe
product. I've heard both Crown and defence counsel complain about
proprietary formats not working on their Windows and MacOS computers. I use
a free software computer (GNU) and I have trouble because GNU rejects
proprietary formats by design.
I think that the police and Crown counsel use Windows at work. They may be
more willing to switch to free formats, if those formats work on Windows.
Will the OGV and WEBM free-video-formats work natively in Windows 7? How
about XP, Vista, and 8? Will ogv and webm work in Internet Explorer or
Firefox on Windows? Will ogv and webm work on MacOS or in Safari on Mac? I
know that these free formats work in GNU.
If ogv or webm work natively in Windows, then Crown attorneys may find those
free formats more reliable than proprietary formats. I understand that Crown
attorneys experience the same compatibility problems that defence counsel do,
with proprietary formats on Windows.
Values
Proprietary formats work with proprietary software. This is a problem when
the user has personal or confidential information on the same computer as
proprietary software. Proprietary software does not have a public audit
process; the user only gets a superficial impression of what it's doing.
Some people reject proprietary software (eg. MacOS, Windows, Adobe software)
because proprietary products undermine their computing security in principle.
Proprietary software users don't have to compromise their values or political
views to watch evidence videos in proprietary formats. They can buy the
proprietary Adobe product, borrow a friend's Windows computer to watch an
.exe format video, etc.
Free software users (freedom, not price) also have to buy and borrow what
they need to watch the video evidence. For a defence lawyer, the alternative
is turning down a case. Possibly every case where there is video evidence.
An accused person who doesn't believe in proprietary software could reject
the proprietary format video. But this could undermine his opportunity to
make a full answer and defence.
Free software users have to compromise their values and political views, or
not participate in the justice system.
Using proprietary software means relinquishing privacy and autonomy. Using
proprietary software on an internet-connected work computer allows whoever
controls that proprietary software opportunities to view and take what they
want. [This is a fair statement, right? I'd like to say this in as
ideology-free, matter-of-fact a way possible.]
The Crown encourages defense counsel to use proprietary software by providing
disclosure in a proprietary format. If the Crown provided video evidence in
free formats instead, accused persons and defence lawyers could review that
evidence without using proprietary software.
More questions
Any suggestions on how I could approach this?
A Crown lawyer told me that other lawyers have asked the police before.
For the police: Is there free software (for Windows) that can save analog
audio/video to free formats? How about digital audio/video?
Here's my short list of free formats. Please correct me or add to it.
Video: ogv, webm
Audio: ogg, flac
Fixed text: pdf
Text: .odt, .txt
Photos: .jpg, .png (?)
What other kinds of media are there?
Which applications can view/edit the formats listed above?
(Windows/Mac/GNU/etc please)
Am I missing anything?
*I believe that I have encountered a CSS encrypted DVD, but I don't know how
to identify it for sure.
